Did Human Hands Evolve Specifically For Fighting?

While there used to be some speculation in the Darwin community that human hands evolved to make it easier to "pack the palm", a new study indicates that our ability to make a fist actually manifested for the sole purpose of beating the holy, living snot out of each other.

Researchers from the University of Utah say that there is only one reason why humans need to make a closed fist – and that is to fight. In fact, the human hand has only a few possible shape configurations that allow people to have both manual dexterity and the ability to land crushing blows.

Evolutionary biologist and study co-author David Carrier says that humans evolved to fight. "If you stop and look at what we know about the other species, we're a relatively violent group of mammals," he said.

Carrier says that once Australopithecus afarensis (aka great apes) began walking on two legs millions of years ago, there were rapid advancements in the evolution of the human hand. Researchers also believe that male aggression had a significant influence on evolving the hand into a deadly weapon.

However, we have always been more lovers than a fighters, so for that reason we are choosing to believe that the fists that confine our rosy palms simply evolved so that we could efficiently empty the cannon.